Spotlight on Daniel Rumbolt & Amber-Lynn Thorne: (Un)Common Threads Creativity & Innovation Summit Artists-in-Residence
Artists help us see the world through a different lens. They offer fresh perspectives and insight, helping us view problems in different ways, and come up with creative solutions.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, we understand that creativity and innovation go hand in hand. That's what Business & Arts NL's upcoming (Un)Common Threads Creativity & Innovation Summit is all about.
Taking place on November 7 at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown St. John’s, this special, one-day event aims to inspire individuals and teams across the business and arts sectors, and highlight the many ways in which we value and apply creativity and imagination in our daily lives. The day will also feature inspiring talks from creative leaders, as well as talented artists-in-residence who will be creating on-site (while inviting participants to join in the fun).
Throughout this month, we'll be introducing you to these artists and creative leaders as they share what gets their creative juices flowing, the key to successful collaboration and more, while shedding light on their own artistic processes and inspirations.
This week, we'd like to introduce you to Daniel Rumbolt and Amber-Lynn Thorne - visual artists and longtime friends whose summit installation "(Net)working" marks their first official collaboration.
Daniel Rumbolt
Both hailing from rural Newfoundland (Rumbolt from the Northern Peninsula and Thorne from Thornlea), their work is shaped by the land and sea as much as their own personal experiences.
We caught up with them to talk about creativity, the rural experience, and how their installation will invite summit participants to get hands-on and find their own inner artist.
Business & Arts NL: When and where would you say you feel the most creative?
Daniel: I feel like most of my creativity is in my head. I feel like I get more ideas when I'm home, like on the coast, or with my friends. But I feel like it's anywhere I have the mental space to just think for a minute and reflect. Because I think both of our practices are sort of about our own experiences in life and our memories... and I have to just close my eyes and put myself back there typically to think about it.
Amber-Lynn: I would say for me, when I see good art, or art that makes me feel something, say if I'm at an art gallery, or even sometimes when I'm scrolling on my phone and I see something that resonates with me, I just feel very satiated; I feel really full in a good way. And I feel antsy to make something myself.
Daniel: I also feel like when we talk about our work together, I get motivated. When we get each other excited about the work and when the ideas start playing...it kind of snowballs in a really positive way when you're able to talk about your ideas with other artists.
Amber-Lynn Thorne
Business & Arts NL: What would you say you look for in a creative collaborator?
Daniel: I like working collaboratively in the sense (of) bouncing ideas and developing ideas and getting feedback and things like that. But I think my work has been so specifically about me (laughs), and about my own history and experience... but it's been really cool that Amber-Lynn and I have realized the overlap in our experiences. And now, when it feels like we're collaborating, I don't feel like I need to do a lot of that groundwork, of laying the foundation or having to explain things - we kind of just get it.
Amber-Lynn: The foundation has been laid. We've been friends for a long time.
Daniel: I feel like there's a safety when we talk about our work with each other...we're both very comfortable talking about everything to do with our project and our art practice. And so I think having that safe space with a collaborator and feeling open is super important.
Business & Arts NL: How do you tap into your creativity? And alternatively, what blocks your creativity and how do you deal with those mental blocks?
Daniel: Dealing with mental block is really hard (laughs). I find I distract myself by doing other things, but I try to make them still feel tangentially productive. Like if I know I have to work on a net, sometimes I'll just force myself to go to the studio, even if I'm literally just answering emails in the studio; just physically putting myself in that space where I'm ready for that half a second that motivation hits, then I can just do it.
Amber-Lynn: For me, it's going to the beach, and beachcombing. I think it's similar to Daniel where it's sort of like feeling productive in a way, because perhaps maybe I could use what I'm finding in my art pieces. It's just calming, relaxing and helps clear the mind. It's very meditative.
TURN THE BOAT AROUND, handbuilt and hand-painted porcelain tray, 7.5in x 5in, 2024, Amber-Lynn Thorne.
Business & Arts NL: You use coastal imagery and traditional methods in your practice. How does coming from rural Newfoundland inspire or inform your artistic practice, and what influence has it had on you as creatives?
Amber-Lynn: It's part of our identity, I think...my father was a fisherman, he was a skipper. And capelin was one of the fish that he caught.
Daniel: When I was younger, I sort of went with the crowd of thinking, "I can't wait to get out of this." But as soon as I left it, I was like, "Oh no." I felt disconnected, I felt something missing. And I think it took me a while for my art practice to circle back and let me be okay with making work informed by Newfoundland and growing up on the Northern Peninsula and everything. But like Amber-Lynn said, it's just part of my identity. If I think about my family, I think about the Northern Peninsula. If I think about growing up, I think about the ocean. It's all so weirdly connected. And I think it comes through in our artwork, in using beachcombing, or ceramics, or making nets, or whatever it might be. It's all so linked to the coast.
Business & Arts NL: Your project (Net)working will invite people to get hands-on as they paint their own ceramic capelin, that will then be attached to a net, which will get bigger and bigger over the course of the day as more folks contribute. What message are you sending with this project and what do you hope people will take away from it?
Catch and release, variable installation, white bronze, nylon twine net, 2023, Daniel Rumbolt.
(Photo: © Laurence Poirier)
Daniel: I think for us, when we thought about the project, obviously we were looking at what would make sense with the theme of the conference - fostering creativity, and kind of blurring the lines between business and the arts. We wanted to create something that was very accessible...we want people to feel like they can step into our world for a second and become an artist.
Amber-Lynn: For however long they want to.
Daniel: Exactly. They can look at it for 20 seconds and be like, "Okay, I'm good." Or if someone wants to sit with us all day, bring it on. So, creating a little access point for people who are not necessarily in the art world, but an opportunity for them to be the artist, and to feel they're creative and feel empowered by that process.
And there's so much we could talk to people about, like the traditions of building the nets, or fishing, or the importance of capelin in our province...So it opens up a lot of space for conversation...in our collaboration, we really value community dialogue and just being able to have a chat and hear stories from people. And maybe that's something else that came from growing up in a small town. Having a yarn is pretty important to building community.
Amber-Lynn: You can take your capelin after - it's not going to be big, it's going to be about real capelin size. We like the idea of all the different, painted capelin displayed together - individuality and community at the same time.
Sun-dried and sought after, acrylic paint, dyed silk habotai, dimensions variable, 2023, Daniel
Rumbolt. (Photo: © Heather Nolan)
Daniel: I just finished my MFA here in Montreal and I did a project about the capelin roll, and it had a video and ceramics and everything. And when I was explaining it, I could tell it wasn't clicking with people. So I literally pulled up Google and went on CBC to find a video. And it blew people's minds (laughs), little kids going out and grabbing fistfuls of fish. So I think it's really important to actually show people things that maybe we take for granted.
Business & Arts NL: What do you think the business and arts communities have in common? Why do you think it's important for them to work together, and what can people in the business community learn from creatives?
Amber-Lynn: Adaptability. You have to be adaptable. You have to sort of be responsive to the changes happening in the world around you.
Daniel: To be open to changes that happen. Also...Amber-Lynn and I kind of represent two different sides of business within the arts. Amber-Lynn is an entrepreneur and has that handle of being able to produce and sell and that side of business. And I don't have that expertise at all. But on the other side of business, I help with non-profits and grants. I feel like there's two very weirdly different, similar sides of business within the arts within Newfoundland.
There's definitely an art to social media, to marketing, to project managing, to managing people. They're all about, like Amber-Lynn said, finding creative solutions. And just because you're not necessarily sitting in a studio or painting or making something, it doesn't mean that part of your brain isn't being exercised or used. So I think people are going to maybe be a bit surprised at how much they hopefully enjoy the process of painting and having a conversation about creativity. And we'll learn something too.